Osmosis Schmosmosis

I just received an email with a deal from one of those Groupon-type companies. It offered a massage, a back exfoliation–and an ionic spa session. I had no idea what an ionic spa session was a couple of hours ago.

I decided to check out the spa’s website to get a feel for the location. (I prefer not to link to them, but you can google their name: Clinique La Source de la Santé.)

I first noticed that the spa was actually marketed as a health centre. I also found a page describing the ionic spa session that had been mentioned in the deal.

Now, what I’m about to tell you is nothing to laugh at, because people spend loads of hard-earned cash on this service and believe that it works. But when I read about this treatment, I could not stop laughing. The claims being made were utterly ridiculous.

So this is the treatment: you put your feet into a foot bath for thirty minutes. But not for the purpose of simply relaxing, or having your pods massaged with jets of warm water, which would feel great anyway after a long day on your feet.

This is how the treatment is explained (the grammar and spelling is all theirs):

Essentially, the IonicSpa functions as a magnet that helps your body to detoxify by attracting toxins! Toxic particles exit the body through skin pores buy osmosis to where they are neutralized and trapped in a charged bath of water! The IonicSpa is care for the immune system; it is revolutionary way to re-balance, reenergize & detoxify the body; treatment sessions re-stabilizes cells of the body so that normal physiological functions run at optimal levels, particularly the uptake of necessary nutrients & the elimination of unwanted waste products.

In addition, this foot bath is supposed to help you lose weight, relieve your seasonal allergies, give you more energy and increase oxygen levels in your body, reduce inflammation, take away your insomnia, reduce stress, restore the immune system and remove heavy metals from your body.

I love that last claim. Gee, what was I doing taking painful deferoxamine injections for 16 years in order to remove excess iron from my blood? All I needed was an ionic foot bath!

Their website also has absurd pictures of people’s feet in these ionic baths, with the water changing colours according to which part of the body the toxins were supposedly coming from (the liver, gallbladder and so on). The toxins were allegedly leaving the person’s body through the dilated pores of the person’s feet! One of the pictures showed coppery coloured water with reddish brown sludge-like particles in it. Pretty gross.

Because it is just too hilarious not to share, here’s a guide explaining which parts of the body are being detoxified according to the colour and texture of the water at the end of the treatment. This information is derived directly from the website.

COLOR OR PARTICLES

MATERIAL OR AREA OF THE BODY BEING DETOCIFIED

Black

Detoxifying from liver

Black Flecks

Heavy metals especially Iron

Brown

Detoxifying from liver, cellular debris and tobacco

Dark Green

Detoxifying from gallbladder

Orange

Detoxifying from joints

Red Flecks

Blood clot material

White Cheese – Like Particles

Most likely yeast

White Foam

Detoxifying from Lymphatic system

Yellow – Green

Detoxifying from kidneys, bladder, urinary tract and female/prostate area

Oily Surface

Fatty, lactic, oxalic and uric acids

So how often are you supposed to come in for a treatment to ensure the very best results? This health centre strongly recommends two to three sessions per week for four weeks to start. At a cost of $40 per thirty-minute session, that amounts to… a whopping $480. For. Absolutely. Nothing.

I did some research into the truth about how these foot baths actually produce colour. Livestrong.com quoted Dr. Stephen Barrett of Device Watch, who says that the colour of the foot bath water changes because of “a common chemical reaction, caused by the iron oxide — more commonly known as rust — that occurs when the electrodes in the water break down.” Dr. Barrett also notes that the water would change colour “even if a foot was absent”.

To see an ionic foot bath in action, I dug up a couple of YouTube videos in which experiments were done to see how these foot baths produce such gunky textures and colours. I also found a training video that is probably packaged with one of these ionic foot bath products.

It seems that after these treatments, the people using them believe that they have been cleansed, and that their bodies are now pure. But, as the Voice of Young Science says: “Your gut, your liver and kidneys, your lymphatic system and your skin are more than capable of dealing with everyday toxins.”

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I know of a contraption that you can acquire for less than the price of two of these treatments. You can even pick one up from your friendly neighbourhood Canadian Tire. I, myself, have had one for years! I can guarantee that it will massage your feet and make you feel relaxed and blissfully rejuvenated.

And as an added bonus, your feet won’t be sitting in a broth of rust and sludge.